The present disclosure relates to apparatus and methods for coupling fluid processing or other apparatus into a production flow at or near a production tree, manifold or other equipment. The present disclosure also relates to apparatus and methods for diverting fluids, recovery, and injection.
Christmas trees or valve trees are well known in the art of oil and gas wells, and generally comprise an assembly of pipes, valves and fittings installed in a wellhead after completion of drilling and installation of the production tubing to control the flow of oil and gas from the well. Subsea christmas trees typically have at least two bores one of which communicates with the production tubing (the production bore), and the other of which communicates with the annulus (the annulus bore).
Typical designs of christmas trees have a side outlet (a production wing branch) to the production bore closed by a production wing valve for removal of production fluids from the production bore. The annulus bore also typically has an annulus wing branch with a respective annulus wing valve. The top of the production bore and the top of the annulus bore are usually capped by a christmas tree cap which typically seals off the various bores in the christmas tree, and provides hydraulic channels for operation of the various valves in the christmas tree by means of intervention equipment, or remotely from an offshore installation.
As technology has progressed for subsea installations, subsea processing of fluids is now desirable. Such processing can involve adding chemicals, separating water and sand from the hydrocarbons, pumping the produced fluids, analysing the produced fluids, etc.